Ode I
Since you bore the savior and
creator, you always protect from manifold dangers those who approach your
divine icon, for you alone save us, O Virgin.
Having acquired your very august icon
as true and heavenly wealth, Patmos magnifies you decorously.
Deem them who trust firmly in your
intercession to be worthy of finishing purely a peaceful and stable life,
enjoying good health and performing holy works.
In every grievous sorrow, always give
us your speedy help and fill our minds with joy and gladness, our Protector.
Ode III
You, as our sympathetic queen, protect unceasingly those
who call on your divine name in affliction, O Protector; wherefore, we proclaim
your protection and fervent defence.
Curing passions that are difficult to deal with, O Queen,
the salvific power of your wondrous icon goes before those who amid dangers
celebrate it and drives away every threat of our enemies.
Your wonderworking icon truly has appeared as a spring of
holiness in Patmos, all-pure Virgin, purifying and saving all who hasten
to it, O Maiden who protects us.
All-pure Virgin, give salvation, bodily health,
strength and healing of the passions and deliverance from every disease and
affliction to those who reverently venerate your divine icon, with which you
have favored us.
Since you, O Queen, have been fittingly called our protector,
protect those who seek out your divine protection from all harm, malice and
affliction.
Prayer after Ode III.
Fervent Intercession
Patmos mystically exults in you, O Virgin and protector, and honors
your icon, for from it she receives the favors of your munificent benevolence,
and she ever proclaims your miracles, pure Virgin.
Ode IV
O Virgin most highly favored by God, strengthen us in
virtuous works and ask for the forgiveness of the sins of those who run
fervently to your protection.
You who are afflicted by sufferings, run to the icon of our Protector, so that you may receive healing of both soul and body.
The divine glory of your icon flashes like lightning beyond all brightness, our
Protector, and drives away the black night of the passions.
When the bound captive saw you, he was immediately set
free, joyously magnifying your great miracle, O Maiden.
Ode V
Protect us beneath your fervent
protection, O Virgin, from all kinds of attacks of the deceiver, protecting us
from every affliction.
Every
pious Christian approaching your icon, our Protector, is filled with joy and
proclaims your salvific favor.
You
heard the voice of a suffering woman, pure Virgin, and having come up in
a hidden manner, you appeared and set her free from her disease, O Queen.
O
our Protector, when we only say your august name with fervent faith, we are
quickly delivered from afflictions which suddenly come upon us.
Ode VI
O
Virgin, as you are holier than the angels, purify our hearts of base and materialistic
thoughts, for we fall down and venerate your divine icon which ever pours forth
grace and mercy, O Protector.
You heal the pains of bodies and souls,
O Protector and Maiden, as in Egypt you rescued the endangered young man from
death by your awesome authority, O Virgin that is worthy of all praise.
Deliver with your speedy visitation
those distressed by difficult dangers and afflicted by terrible diseases;
always give physical help to those near and far, in accordance with your title,
O Queen.
Your divine and shining temple is seen as
a flower-bearing garden, where as a flower of life your icon is fragrant with
your beneficial deeds, wherefore Patmos hastens fearfully to your protection,
our Protector.
Prayers after Ode VI.
Kontakion in Tone 2. By the streams of your blood.
By
your fittingly named title of Protector, all-pure Virgin, as a treasury of
inexhaustible kindness, deliver us from every difficult situation and from the attacks
of the crafty destroyer of man, for we faithfully glorify you.
Far-famed Patmos by your divine goodwill
has freely acquired your wondrous icon as a source of happiness that cannot be
taken away, O Maiden, for you furnish from it your favors to all who ask. We truly properly call it our protector, for
it saves from afflictions those who run to it in faith. Wherefore, pure Virgin, ever give us
your help and manifest to us your splendidly generous protection.
Ode VII
You gave strength, O
Maiden, to the suffering woman; so, also, heal now our diseases by your
authority, O Virgin and Protector, and furnish to us your beneficence in this
life.
Your grace, O Virgin,
spreading out everywhere saves all men; therefore, those who have obtained your
kindnesses hasten, O Protector, to your holy temple, hymning your glory.
Patmos has found a
great prize—your august icon, O Queen. Therefore
she enjoys the wealth of your favor and ever extols your many miracles with grateful
voices.
Divinely favored
Virgin, always rescue those who in faith fall down and venerate your divine
icon from terrible drought and the hurricane of passions, and from every
misfortune, mischief, madness and corruption.
Irmos. The
king of Heaven whom the hosts of angels hymn, hymn and exalt him above all
forever.
Deliver me from
deadly malice, as you preserved from certain death those who fell before your
icon in faith.
As you grant by your
invisible presence requests to those who invoke you, so also give even to me
help from Heaven.
As you cured
thoroughly the pupils of the body, so open the eye of my soul, so that I may
see the light of the divine commandments.
O Virgin, grant strength to the ailing and refreshment to
the oppressed who in faith ask for your divine assistance.
Do not cease watching over this island of yours, for it
possesses your divine icon as a safe refuge, O Protector.
Like a cloud of life, you daily cause immaterial rain to
fall on those who take refuge in your kindness, O Maiden.
Crush the evil serpent which creeps in deceitfully against
us, O Protector, and protect our life in peace.
We fittingly hymn, O Full of Grace, your immeasurable
grace, which you never fail to give to us.
NOTES FOR THE CIRCUMSPECT
My thanks to Zoilus, my Greek editor, and eagle-eyed Aeteia, the Lawfully Wedded, who once again saved me from sinking just as I was pulling into harbor.
Source: https://www.proseyxi.com/paraklisi-eis-tin-panagia-tin-diasozousa/.
Ode I.
“You always protect” is διασωζεις. Διασωζω can also be
translated as preserve, maintain (Great Scott); save, heal,
cure (Schrevelius); conduct, guide (Sophocles); rescue,
deliver (Kyriakides). The reader
is invited to decide which verb he prefers.
Montanari offers save. In
Greek, no such choice has to be made; the native speaker of ancient Greek would
unconsciously pick out the relevant nuance.
I settled on protector.
The reader may address her as he prefers.
“The savior and creator” may seem objectionable, but the
rules of English capitalization are clear:
proper nouns are capitalized and common nouns are not. In “the savior and creator,” we have two
nouns modified by “the,” so they cannot be proper nouns. When we address the savior, we would write,
“O Savior,” because then it is a proper noun.
Keep in mind that neither Hebrew nor Syriac even have capital
letters. Attributing to capital letters
a theological significance is a mistake.
“Decorously” is a translation of εύσήμως as a
scribal error for εύσχήμως.
The first word, which is found in the text, means evidently or distinctly. The second word means decorously, in
a dignified way (Montanari) or decently, honorably, with
grace and dignity (Great Scott). It
makes no sense to me to say “Patmos magnifies the Mother of God evidently,
distinctly.”
Ode III.
“Power” is an admittedly loose translation of χάρις.
I justify my translation by appealing to Harrison’s discussion of the
constellation of χάρις, which includes themes very familiar
to readers of canons—glory, wealth, mystery and power. In particular, Harrison quotes C. Spicq
asnoting that “in Paul’s epistles χάρις and δύναμις are frequently synonymous (James R. Harrison, Paul’s Language
of Grace in its Graeco-Roman Context [Wipf & Stock, 2017; prev. Mohr
Siebeck, 2003], p. 243).
I also note that “scholars generally assume that
χάρις, in epinician poetry, has a broad semantic range that includes splendor,
glory, charm, favor, ode, grace, gratitude, and service” (Chris Eckerman, in
his abstract of his “Χάρις in the Epinician Odes of Pindar and
Bacchylides” [https://classicalstudies.org/%CF%87%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%82-epinician-odes-pindar-and-bacchylides]). That our hymnographical canons are indeed
epinician may be for the moment established by two observations. The first is that our hymnographers, like the
poets, were concerned largely with praising their heroes in a public
context. The second is that our
hymnographers and the Greek poets share a list of common vocabulary and
concerns: invocation, prayer,
vaunting/boasting, entreating, entreaty, supplication. (For details, please see Wells, James Bradley.
2010. Pindar's Verbal Art: An Enthnographic Study of Epinician Style.
Hellenic Studies Series 40. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, available at http://nrs.harvard.edu/
urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_WellsJ.Pindars_Verbal_Art.2010), from which I
gratefully draw this list. Long ago St. Basil secured a solid theory
justifying secular learning in the Christian education; I do not doubt that the
odes of Pindar and Bacchylides were somewhere on the reading list of some
hymnographers, whereby the vocabulary and conventions entered into the common
fund of all hymnographers.
“Benevolence” renders εύνοία, which can also mean affection or good will.
Ode VI.
“Purify” is not the translation of καθαγίασον, which means “consecrate.” I believe that the word intended is καθάγνισον.
It makes more sense to purify our hearts of base and materialistic thoughts than it does to
consecrate our hearts of base and materialistic thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.